Turned my back, felt the knife sink deep
by kawuli
Summary: Phillips learned the hard way never to get his hopes up for any tribute from District Six. When Rokia is Reaped for the 71st Hunger Games, the one rule-"stay alive"-is nothing new. It's just the venue that's changed, and how different is the Arena from the back alleys of District Six, anyway? (Smiles and Promises: Part 1)
1. Chapter 1

Reaping Day in District Six. The one morning out of the year when there are no train whistles, no shrieking of brakes or rattling of the cars on the tracks, when District Six, like the rest of the country, stands still.

Phillips takes a deep breath and walks out of his house, turns to make sure the door is locked firmly behind him. His neighbors are coming along, too, little comfort that it is, blinking slowly in the hazy sunlight. Terence gives Phillips a curt nod, and Poppy smiles, silly-sweet, as they make their way down to the square together. A pretty pathetic showing, two morphling addicts and him, and it's been that way for 23 years now with no sign it'll ever change. Terence is coming along this year, Victor Affairs' orders. Of the two he's more likely to stay coherent for a camera, and he has a caustic sense of humor the Capitol likes well enough. But he doesn't know how to keep it away from the kids, so if Phillips has anything to say about it, Terence will stay the hell out of the way. He usually does.

They sit on the stage, waiting as the Peacekeepers drag in the last stragglers, kids who already have track marks on their arms, kids who laugh loud and harsh when they see the pinprick of blood on the page. Finally there's some signal and it starts, the Mayor welcoming everyone, the same video about history and honor and patriotism, and the escort steps up to pull names from the bowl. "Ladies first!" Linsea simpers. Her silver fingernails find one of the slips in the bowl and draw it out. The square holds its breath. "Rokia Diarra," the escort calls, and Phillips follows the camera, looking around until he sees her, a dark-skinned scrawny kid standing shocked-still for a second until she takes a deep breath, clenches her hands to fists and steps forward. She's not dressed for the Reaping, this kid, she's dressed like a mechanic in jeans and a t-shirt and scuffed, sturdy work boots, short black hair haphazardly cut curling around her ears. She's silent and stoic as she climbs up to stand on the stage, stares out past the crowd, hands opening and closing at her sides. Up close he can see the lines of muscle in her arms, her shoulders tense.

The escort has moved on already to the boys. "Jerome Thomas," she calls, and when the cameras find him he's stumbling forward from an elbow to the ribs, the boys standing around him frozen with wide eyes and open mouths. He's taller than the girl, all arms and legs he hasn't grown into yet, and he's walking toward the stage with wide eyes darting around as though looking for the trick. They shake hands, the crowd cheers, and the whole production moves into the Justice Building.

Phillips stands in the corridor waiting. First to arrive are two kids, boy and girl who look not much past Reaping age, breathless and furious and asking for Rokia. Phillips points them to the door and the girl turns to pin him with a glare as they go in. When they come out, somber but dry eyed, she comes up to stand in front of him, staring him down like it's his fault her friend got Reaped. "You bring her back," she says, fists clenched.

"Sara," the boy says, and she spins to face him, "come on, let's go find Sal." The girl hesitates, then sighs and follows him out.

The boy's parents come next, saying nothing, and when they leave the mother is crying and the father looks up just once from comforting her to glance over at Phillips, who nods. Then there's a few of the boys from the square, nervous and confused, who ignore him, and then nobody.

When the hour is up they go to the train, in a car for the occasion. They sit silently, but Rokia is watching him, dark brown eyes narrowed, assessing. She hasn't been crying, unlike the boy next to her whose face is tear streaked and miserable.

When they step onto the train, both tributes stop short. The boy's eyes go wide, amazed, and he goes to sit at the table. Phillips follows, turns back to see the girl, still watching with narrowed eyes. "Come on," he says, trying to keep his voice gentle. "You've got to eat." She straightens her shoulders and sits.

Linsea joins them with a pinched smile, but Terence sees Phillips' glare and heads for his room. "Well, isn't this lovely," Linsea says, filling her plate.

Rokia looks away while Jerome mumbles, "Yes, ma'am," and Linsea lapses into silence.

He shows the kids their rooms, after a while, heads for his own once the girl's shut the door pointedly behind her. Turns on the TV to watch the Reapings from the other districts. Nothing out of the ordinary, volunteers in One and Two, the girl in Four is 17 and nobody volunteers for her, but the boy they call is a scrawny 13-year-old and a taller, stronger kid steps forward. Phillips sighs-no way they give it to Four this year, not after Annie Cresta. Then it's the usual mixed bag, a strong-looking boy from Seven, a girl from Eight with a wicked grin, two scrawny miners' kids from Twelve, where Haymitch glares at the camera before stumbling into the Justice Building.

Phillips turns off the TV and pulls out the latest polling data-his latest, anyway, the standard stuff that any mentor can ask for. He's got it practically memorized by now. Last years' games were considered boring-a standard wooded Arena whose only twist was a flood that no one will admit was an accident but clearly couldn't have been planned. No final battle, no drama, a Victor who came out half-drowned and in shock and hasn't been seen since her disastrous Victory Tour.

The odds will never be in District Six's favor, but unusual Arenas tend to lessen the Careers' built-in advantage, and the less nature around the better for the urban middle districts. If the new Head Gamemaker wants to make a splash his first year out, he'd do worse than to use an artificial environment. They still play more clips of the 69th than the 70th, and if Eibhlin is still far more popular than Annie-well, no point thinking that far ahead.

They come into the Capitol sometime around midnight, through the tunnel and out into the brilliant expanse of light. The kids come out of their rooms as the train slows, look out at the crowd gathered at the station as they pull in. Phillips ushers them through to their rooms in the Training Center to get a few hours sleep, Linsea leaves them at the door with a wave and another pinched smile, and Terence nods and disappears. Good.

* * *

When Phillips comes out of his room in the morning, Rokia's standing in front of the windows, watching the streetlights go out as the sun comes up. She turns around as soon as his door opens, watches him come into the room, flashes a tight smile in greeting. A couple of Avoxes are laying out breakfast, and Rokia watches warily as they come and go. When they finish she edges toward the table, looks wide-eyed at everything that's set out for them. She's still wearing her clothes from yesterday, out of place against the luxurious room.

Phillips sits, motions for her to take a seat. She does, watches him fill his plate, then follows suit, taking the same things he did: scrambled eggs, toast, hash browns, and she eats, quick, glancing up at him from time to time as though she feels his eyes on her.

The silence hangs heavy in the air until Phillips clears his throat. "You'll have the whole day with the prep teams today," he says, for lack of anything else to talk about. "Then this evening the parade, and tomorrow you start training."

She nods, and Phillips wonders if she's going to say anything, but then she swallows and looks up at him. "Tell me about training," she says, and her eyes dart back down to her plate pretty quickly, but she's paying attention nonetheless.

Phillips thinks for a second. "Well, there's not a lot of time," he starts, "so your best bet is to focus on a few things rather than trying to learn everything." She glances up and nods again. "Do you know anything about fighting?" Plenty of Six kids are used to fistfights long before the Arena, and while it's never yet made a difference, it's always good to know.

Rokia glances away for a second. "Yeah," she says, "my Uncle taught me a few things." She sticks a hand in her pocket, pulls it out reluctantly and flips open a switchblade, turning it against her wrist, ready to use. She flips in back closed, easy familiar motion, and smiles, sharp, an unfunny grin that the cameras will love.

Phillips nods. "Good. Knives are easier to get than fancier weapons. Might want to look at traps and snares, that'd help you get close enough."

Rokia takes a deep, careful breath, and Phillips mentally smacks himself. Of course the kid's not really thinking about killing people, not yet.

But then she nods and meets his eyes for a long second. "I'm a mechanic," she says, "since I was a kid. I bet I could make traps."

She's watching him, almost challenging. "Good," he says. "Check that out tomorrow." She nods and goes back to her plate, looking thoughtful.

The boy comes out a little later, bleary-eyed from sleep, and slumps in his chair while filling up his plate with little tastes from everything he can reach. He eats hungrily, looks up at Phillips when he finishes. "What're we supposed to do?" he asks, trying to sound tough. "We got a schedule?"

Phillips nods, explains again. The kid doesn't ask questions, just looks around, trying to hide the wide-eyed amazement on his face. Rokia raises an eyebrow at him, sips at her coffee. Pretty soon Linsea comes in like a whirlwind, perfume and fancy clothes and high pitched Capitol whine. "Come on, big day, let's get started."

* * *

He meets the kids down near the chariots, their stylists flitting around like deranged birds, adjusting what looks like someone's lunatic idea of railroaders uniforms. They're wearing nothing but striped overalls like out of an old-timey movie, stripped down to show as much skin as they can get away with. The boy's trying to listen to whatever nonsense the stylist is telling him, and gives Phillips an embarrassed smile. Rokia is scowling and tugging her skirt down until her stylist slaps her hand away. She looks up at Phillips and with her eyes sparking, furious, her hair teased out into a corona and dyed flame-colored and wild, she actually looks like someone who'll put up a fight.

Phillips walks over, nods at them. "Good," he says, and gets the full force of Rokia's glare. He puts a hand on the boy's shoulder and squeezes a little, trying not to wince at the bones just under the skin. "Jerome, stand tall," Phillips says, quiet but firm, and the boy shifts, straightens his shoulders. "Rokia," he goes on, putting a little more edge into his voice and keeping his hands to himself, "Stay angry." She looks surprised at that, a flash of amusement on her face, and nods. "Good luck," he says, and steps away.

He goes to sit next to Terence, who looks miserable, pale and shaky. Phillips nods in greeting, and Terence shifts to give him space. "Figured I'd stay out of the way," he mumbles. "You lemme know if you need something."

"Thanks," Phillips says, and he should probably try to be more gracious about it, but Terence long ago wore out his share of Phillips' limited patience.

Johanna Mason drops into her seat with a huff a few minutes later. "Hey there, Phillips," she says, with a smile that's all teeth. "Anything worth giving a shit about this year?"

Phillips shrugs one shoulder. "The girl, maybe," he says. "We'll see. How about yours?"

Johanna rolls her eyes. "We got nothing this year. Boy's from the lumber camps, but he's 14 and he's no Finnick Odair." Finnick glances up at his name and Johanna winks, saucy and overdone. Finnick grins back, sharp and Capitol, and Johanna turns back to Phillips. "And the girl's a merchant kid." Phillips nods, and Johanna goes on. "I'm guessing I'll be done twenty minutes in." She waves down one of the Avoxes floating through the crowd, orders a drink. "You want one, old man?"

Phillips rolls his eyes. "You know I don't," he says, and she laughs.

"Just checking," she says, and before he has a chance to respond, the music blares out and the chariots pull forward.

Phillips doesn't really understand the point of the damn thing, not like you can learn much from watching a bunch of kids ride around in stupid costumes. But it's tradition, and it's the Capitol, so he's given up on any of it making any damn sense. When the Six chariot flashes on the screen Johanna elbows him. "See what you mean about the girl," she says, smirking. "She looks like she could stab someone and enjoy it right about now." Phillips isn't sure what to say to that, so he doesn't say anything, just nods again. He hopes Johanna isn't the only one to think so.

He meets the kids after, back under the training center, and the boy is wide-eyed and amazed as he glances around at the other kids, the horses, back out toward the crowd. Rokia's got her arms crossed over her chest and just looks annoyed now instead of furious. They follow him when he leads them toward the elevator, where Linsea takes a minute to coo over how well they did before heading home.

"That was amazing," the boy says, soft and overawed, when they're alone in the elevator.

"Capitol's something else all right," Phillips says, while Rokia rolls her eyes toward the ceiling. "Good job tonight," he tells them, as the elevator deposits them on their floor, and this time both of them give him shy half-smiles before slipping off to their rooms.

Rokia's awake before him again the next day, sitting on the floor with her back to the wall, knees drawn up and watching the Capitol outside with a frown drawing lines between her eyebrows. She turns as he comes in, scrambles to her feet.

"Couldn't sleep?" Phillips asks. "You ought to rest as much as you can."

Rokia shrugs, one corner of her mouth curling up. "Lot on my mind," she says, and follows him to the table again. There's a long silence before she speaks up. "Is there a telephone anywhere I could use?"

Phillips frowns. "Tributes aren't supposed to. It's best not to worry about what folks back home think."

Rokia shakes her head. "It's not that, I..." She pauses, looks at him. "I just wanted to make sure my sisters are okay," she says, gives him a rueful half smile, and goes back to eating.

Phillips sighs. "I could call the Mayor's office, have them send someone-" he stops when she looks up, sharp.

"No, don't do that. It's no good having Peacekeepers come around, I'm sure they'll be fine."

Phillips decides to let it go. "Got it, no Peacekeepers," he says, and she relaxes a little.

Most of the kids, even in Six, have some family come visit in the Justice Building. He hasn't thought about it, but the only people who came to see Rokia were those two kids and they didn't look like siblings. He tries to keep his sigh internal, but from the glance she shoots him, he hasn't really succeeded. She's got a wry smile that belongs on someone a lot older, and the look she gives him goes with it. She gets up when her plate's clean, walks back over to look out the window, and Phillips doesn't have anything to say so he lets the silence settle as the sunlight fills up the room.

Jerome comes out just a few minutes before Phillips would've had to get him, and when the time approaches, Phillips beckons Rokia to come join them. "Training's sometimes overwhelming," he says. "Don't worry too much about the other tributes, but keep your eyes open. Pick a couple stations and really practice, don't get distracted trying everything." Rokia's watching him, intent, and Jerome's face goes pale, eyes fearful and huge. "You'll be fine," Phillips says, "I'll see you this evening."

They walk into the elevator together, and Phillips finally lets himself sigh and sit down heavily on the couch.

* * *

The days of training are nothing unusual, and Phillips checks the sponsors den but nobody's interested in Six until his kids show him they're worth it. The kids come back from training quiet and withdrawn and wake up stiff and tired and ready for more. It's just like usual.

Until the scores come up from the private sessions. Jerome scores four, typical for urban tributes with no special skills. Rokia scores an eight.

Linsea trills with excitement. "That's just marvelous!" she coos, coming over to take Rokia's cheeks in her hands. "However did you do it?"

Rokia pulls away, pulls her knees up onto the couch. "I dunno," she says, looking down. "I just did what Phillips said, focus on traps and stuff."

Phillips gives her a smile he hopes is encouraging, nods. "Good job," he says, and her eyes flick up to meet his. "You'll have to be careful, though, a score like that'll make you a target."

Rokia nods. "Yeah," she says, "I'm good at staying out of the way." She smiles a little, as though it's funny to her for some reason, sits back against the couch as the rest of the scores flash.

That night he goes down to the bar after the kids are in bed. He usually avoids it, finds it distasteful at the very least, but tonight he wants to know what the gossip is about a Six girl with a high score. So he orders a ginger ale and sits back, sipping it and watching. Cecilia comes up to him after a bit, smiling softly. She had a baby on her hip last year, but this year she's alone.

"Your girl looks good," she says. "You thought about alliances at all?"

Phillips is taken aback. "Hadn't," he says, considering. "Your boy had what, a six?"

Cecilia nods. "He's a tough kid. Our two will stay together, probably. Think they'd like having your girl."

Phillips turns his glass between his palms, watches the liquid shift. "I don't think she's going in for alliances," he says. "But I'll think about it."

Cecilia's eyes narrow, calculating. "Talk to me first, would you? If you decide on yes."

"Sure," Phillips says.

Nobody else approaches him, but he gets a handful of very interested looks pointed in his direction. He's about to give up and go to bed when he feels a hand come down on his shoulder.

"Phillips," Brutus says, sliding onto the stool next to him.

"Brutus," Phillips returns. "You in this year?"

"Nah," Brutus says, waving at the bartender to bring him a beer. "My girl. Emory."

Phillips nods. Brutus gets his beer, takes a long pull, looks over at Phillips. "Your girl's got everyone interested," he says, "Scored eight?"

Phillips shrugs, suddenly defensive. "It's just training," he says, looks over at Brutus, who's leaning his forearms on the counter, dragging a thumbnail over the label on his bottle. "Doesn't mean much once they're in."

Brutus nods. "Good start, though," he says, and Phillips sighs.

"Yeah," he says. Tries not to let himself think about the fact that Brutus' tributes have never scored lower than 9, not to be jealous for something neither of them can help.

They sit in silence till Brutus finishes his beer. "Well," Brutus says, standing. "Gotta go."

Phillips nods. "See you around," he says, and watches Brutus head out before finishing his own drink and heading back upstairs.

* * *

Any undue optimism he'd had is squashed when Rokia comes for interview prep, looking annoyed. Linsea, ushering her into his office, looks just as frustrated, and the two of them are quite pointedly not talking to each other.

Rokia sits down in the chair Jerome has just vacated and crosses her arms over her chest, waiting for him to say something. It's almost an intimidating look, surprising coming from a scrawny 16-year-old, demanding he be worth her time.

"Okay," he says, collecting himself. "Caesar is going to ask you about yourself, what you think of the Capitol, maybe what your plan is for the Arena.

"Am I supposed to have a plan?"

Phillips stops. This isn't supposed to be about strategy, but why not? They have all day. "Not a plan exactly," he says, "but a strategy, sure." She nods, and he goes on. "First thing: when the counter hits zero, you get out of there, I don't care what you think it looks like, it's a bloodbath, for real, and your best bet is to get as far away as you can as soon as possible."

She bites her lip, thinking. "What about supplies?" She asks.

"I'll get you something, or you can steal or scavenge. Just about anything's less dangerous than those first few minutes. Then you hide out, and you wait and see."

"Okay," she says, dubious, and Phillips sighs and moves on.

"Okay, so tell me about your home in Six."

Her face closes off so fast it's like she dropped a door. "Why?" she asks, and it's as suspicious as the first time he saw her, as if just by asking he's erased every conversation they've ever had.

"Because Caesar will," Phillips says.

She raises her eyes to the ceiling. "I live with my mom, I have two little sisters, I work for my uncle, who's a hovercraft mechanic." Looks back at him.

"What about school?" Phillips asks.

"Don't go," she snaps. "Ain't got time."

"What does your mom do?"

"None of your business."

It goes on like that, every question gets a hostile, clipped answer, except the ones about her work, where she gets animated describing how she once rebuilt the whole wing architecture on a cargo craft because...he's honestly not quite sure.

In the end he gives up, tells her she'll be fine, and resolves to try slipping a note to Caesar to stay away from the family questions.

When he sees them dressed for the interviews he wants to ask the stylists what the hell they're thinking. Rokia's dressed in a tight black sheath dress, her skin dusted with something to make it glow golden brown under the lights, and they've done something ridiculous with her hair, wound it through with gold wire. She looks like she's going to a Capitol party, and she looks miserable and furious.

And stunning, to be honest, especially with her eyes flashing with anger. So he doesn't say anything beyond telling both kids to stand straight and remember what they talked about.

He sits through the early interviews without hearing much, until Rokia picks her way carefully onto the stage in her high heels.

"Rokia," Caesar says, "welcome to the Capitol,"

"Thanks," she says, short, and it doesn't get much better from there. They do ask about her family, and her work, and she's by turns taciturn and incomprehensible. And then Caesar asks about her training score.

"Well," she says, and she smiles, shark-like, and where is this coming from? "I think those are secret, but I'll just say that in Six we learn to fight the hard way."

It's the last thing she gets in before time's up, and at least she goes off on a good note, before Jerome takes his turn.

He's just another sullen kid, acting tough to cover the fear. He loves the food in the Capitol and the lights and the fancy clothes, and he's the man of the house in Six, since his dad died in a factory accident. Caesar coaxes out a story about his little brother that's kind of cute but that's as good as it gets.

They're both overshadowed right away by the boy from Seven, telling stories that are probably half fiction about his skill with an ax and how he'll kill anyone who gets in his way. Phillips looks over at Johanna, who's grinning that sharp smile she has, and when the applause starts, he elbows her in the ribs. "I thought you said your tributes weren't much good this year," he asks, and her smile widens.

"Well, turns out I might've been wrong," she says back. "You worried?"

Phillips can't help smiling at that one. "Your boy's not my biggest worry," he says, and turns back to the stage while she laughs.

* * *

He's sitting out on the couch when Rokia comes out. It's late, and she needs her sleep, but here she is. She's back in her district clothes, one hand in the pocket of her jeans.

She walks around to stand in front of him, pulls out her hand, and opens it to reveal a switchblade, handle smooth and settled in her palm. "I guess they won't let me take this in as a token," she says, and Phillips almost laughs.

"No," he says, "weapons aren't allowed as tokens."

Rokia nods. "Then can you hold onto it for me? It's from my uncle, you should give it back to him if I don't come back."

Her voice is steady and she doesn't hesitate before she says it. Phillips nods, and takes the thing out of her hand. "You have something else for a token?" He asks. She shakes her head, and he clambers to his feet. "Wait here," he says, and goes into his room.

She's still standing there when he gets back, and he drops something into her palm. She turns it over and over, rubbing her fingers against the smooth surface, tracing the lines of color.

"What is it?" she asks, still turning the thing over in her hand.

"They call it Six Gold," he says, and her eyebrows go up. "It's really just from where the paint builds up, in the car factories."

She smiles at that, looks up at him. "Thanks," she says, and for the first time it sounds genuine.

"Every tribute should take something from Six in with them," Phillips says, shrugging.

She turns back towards her room, then hesitates, looks back at him. "I got two little sisters," she says. "Alima and Kadidia Diarra. If I don't come back...it would mean a lot if you'd look in on them." She's watching him, serious.

"I will," he says, "I promise."

"Thank you," she says, and before he can answer she's back in her room.


	2. Chapter 2

The platform rises slowly under her feet, and Rokia takes slow, deep breaths, watches the circle of light above her grow until she's through it, out into a grey square that looks-well, familiar, almost. They're in an open square and it reminds Rokia of standing in front of the Justice building, staring out at rundown buildings, except that these are abandoned half-collapsed husks with jutting rebar. The sun is struggling to burn through a thick haze and it's drizzling, water dripping into her eyes.

The countdown clock ticks down, silent, while on the platforms surrounding the dark grey metal of the cornucopia 24 kids stand, the Careers settling in, ready to run, outliers with wide eyes standing stunned. She sees Jerome across the circle, fists clenched, trying to look tough, looks away. To her right there's a wall, head high, and if she can get past that she'll be out of anyone's line of sight. She's hoping nobody will look too hard for her, even if her high score does make her a target. They'll be busy enough right at first.

Two girl is on her left, she scanned the field once, saving a mean grin for Rokia, and is now focused on the countdown and the cornucopia. On her right is the boy from Seven, big and angry, and he's glancing around, eyes narrowed. Rokia will have to get past him, but he's twitchy, nervous, she should be able to slip by before he reacts.

The counter continues, ticking down, and it's like the seconds slow down, her breath harsh in her own ears, the light gleaming dully on an oil slick, the scattering of packs around the cornucopia. She doesn't care about any of it-Phillips told her to get out fast, and he's right, this whole place is a death trap, she wants nothing more than to be far away as fast as possible.

The counter hits zero and the silence shatters.

Rokia jumps down from her platform and turns right, and yep, Seven boy is frozen just half a second longer and that's enough. Ten paces and she's at the wall, fingers and toes finding chinks in the broken concrete until she's up and over. A second to look around, find a path through the rubble strewn wreck of a street to another block of buildings, through empty rooms, around another corner, and she doesn't stop until she can no longer hear the noise of the bloodbath. When the cannons fire she counts six, swallows hard, and keeps running.

Eventually, she has to stop, as the first adrenaline rush washes out, leaving her tired and breathless. She crouches down, back against a wall, and looks around. She needs a hiding place, somewhere to wait, because eventually she'll need food and water but she'll have to steal it and best to wait on that.

It's still drizzling, the kind that's like thick fog more than anything, drops condensing on her jacket, on the metal drainpipe around the corner from her.

Drainpipe. That'll collect whatever moisture there is, so Rokia looks around, slips over and kicks the end, where the pipe leads under the street. Three kicks and it breaks, and Rokia takes a second to be glad for the sturdy boots she's wearing before kneeling down, putting her fingers to the gap.

There's a trickle, nothing more, but it's better than nothing. The metal's soft, but the edges are sharp enough to cut into her Remake-softened hands as she bends one side to trap what she can. She ducks into the building through the broken window to look for anything like a cup, but there's nothing. Just shards of concrete and broken glass, and Rokia swears softly and goes back to the pipe. She kneels again, puts her face to the edge, sucks up a couple metallic mouthfuls, and gets up. Too long out in the open already, she takes off at a quick walking pace, across the street and into an alleyway, zig-zagging through the rubble until the light is starting to fade.

The buildings here are all rough cinder block, worn so the mortar stands out, holes where the blocks have worn away, ledges on half boarded up windows. She steps up to the wall, feels with her fingers for places to hold, and scrambles up two floors to a flat roof, the edging around it enough to hide her from any eyes at ground level. There's no stairs to here, either, just a nailed-down trapdoor, and it's about the best she could hope for as a place to spend the night. So she curls into a corner and waits.

Now that she isn't moving it's cold, sweat from her day of movement combining with drips that fall down her back to leave her shivering. It's not dangerous cold, not like the winter they couldn't afford the gas bill, but cold enough to be miserable anyway. To get out of it she'd have to go back toward ground level and it feels safer up here, so she stays put. Stays huddled into her jacket until the anthem blares out, and her heart stops, then pounds hard in her ears.

Faces flash up in the sky, the boy from Three, the girl from Five, and then Jerome, staring down, solemn, in his tribute uniform.

It's not surprising, and she didn't know him, and it doesn't matter when likely as not she'll be just as dead soon anyway, but still. He was from home, he was a dumb kid who should've grown into those gangly limbs and now he never will.

She should probably keep track somehow, but she spends a minute wondering what Jerome's family is doing, which veers toward wondering what her girls are doing, which she shuts off immediately because no use worrying when there's nothing she can do about it.

But she can't sit still anymore so she walks to the opposite side of the roof and stares toward the central square in the distance. Too far, too dark to tell if anyone's there, if the Career Pack (none dead from One, or Two, or Four, so there's at least six of them) is keeping watch or out hunting. It's too dark for her to trust herself climbing down, moving around on the streets, she'd make noise and that's no good, so she forces herself to settle into the corner and wait.

Every noise makes her jump, and once she's almost sure she hears someone pass by in the street below, and she tries to sleep, chin on her knees, but she's never more than just drifting off before she's jerked awake again by something.

Until finally, finally, the horizon shifts shades to a lighter grey and the sun comes up. Or at least the Gamemakers version does, not like time really matters here, but she doesn't let herself think too hard about it because what good would it do if she knew they'd lengthened or shortened the nights? That way lies crazy, and she's got a job to do. Stay alive.

Unfortunately, staying alive requires food, and eventually that becomes a problem. By the morning of the fourth day Rokia knows if she waits any longer she's going to be too weak to do anything about it, so she starts heading back to the only place she knows she can find something to eat.

The Career Pack has set up camp with their backs to the wall she scrambled over on the first day, out of the wind and keeping out of the drizzle with a wide grey tarp. Rokia skirts far around the square to come at it from the side, hangs back far enough to watch while her pulse races shallow in her throat and her breath comes far too quickly for how much she's moved. No turning back now, she has to get something, but she can't afford to be in a hurry either. She climbs through a broken window, crawls across the floor until she can see the square, the Careers, the stash of food and weapons at the mouth of the Cornucopia.

There's three of them there now, and Rokia watches until she can figure out who's who. It's the Four boy mostly watching out, he's standing just within the rain shadow of the tarp, looking bored. The One girl is talking to the Two boy, who's watching her just exactly as carefully as you'd expect a teenage boy to watch a girl who's only talking as a preamble for something more. Rokia's not too exhausted to be amused by the look on his face, struggling to stay alert while his eyes drag toward her fingers, combing through her long, blond hair. Rokia can't hear what she's saying, but it can't possibly be what's keeping him interested.

She looks back at the square, and then she sees it-a small, square grate, not far from the pile, barred over. Pretty sketchy, as escape routes go, but if it's like the sewers in Six, the grate will lift with a sharp pull and she should be able to slide in. That girl might be able to follow, but the boys are both to broad at the shoulders to fit anything like comfortably.

Still. She has to get that far.

She looks back at the Careers, as the girl from One shifts to straddle the boy from Two, twisting her fingers in his hair and her mouth hard on his, his hands working up under her shirt. The Four boy stops in his pacing for a second to watch, and that's all the chance Rokia needs. She's out the window and across the open space in seconds, and the pile and the Cornucopia are between her and them without anyone noticing. She breathes deep, feels her heart stutter and pound, and creeps on hands and knees toward the mouth of the Cornucopia.

It's all there, and Rokia feels a sharp stab of jealousy that these stupid rich kids, who grew up never having to worry about where their next meal would come from, don't even have to worry about it here where they're all supposed to be equal. Fucking joke, that-and that feels good, anger flooding through her and lighting her up like she's really alive again. She snags pouches of nuts and dried fruit and meat, stuffing them into her jacket, until she takes one too many and the pile shifts.

"Hey!" someone calls, "you wanna do your Games-damned job and see what's making that noise instead of staring?"

There's muttering and footsteps behind her but Rokia's already racing for the grate. It comes up with a jolt that knocks her on her ass, but that just means it's easy to slide through and pull it down behind her. Her feet hit water and she swears to herself, more for the noise than anything, her feet have been soaked for days now.

But she freezes, and there's footsteps, a voice above. "Someone took some shit," and that's a Four accent.

"Dammit, Four," and that must be the Two boy, the one who somehow heard her despite having his tongue down that girl's throat.

"Hey!" The Four boy calls back, affronted. "You were the one making out."

"Boys," the girl calls, and Rokia doesn't hear anything else because that's enough noise to cover her splashing footsteps as she runs down the tunnel, bent double with a hand holding her jacket with its precious cargo.

She lets the next few grates go past, grateful for the dim light they provide but sure the Careers will be looking for her nearby. It's a lucky find, this sewer, and she's just hoping she doesn't run into anyone else who thinks so. Her luck holds, and when she's counted 10 grates, she pushes the 11th one up and crawls out.

At some point, she thinks dully, as the excitement of escape drains away, she's going to get as filthy and soaked as it's possible to be, but for now, she's added yet another layer of grime. She looks around, but she's in some part of the Arena she hasn't seen before, nothing looks familiar. She picks a building at random, peels back the plywood covering a window, and climbs inside.

She pulls out her food one precious packet at a time, lays it out in front of her. For as hard as it was to get, it seems like pathetically little. She reaches for a bag, pulls out a handful of raisins, and puts it in her mouth.

The burst of flavor is like fireworks in her mouth. Rokia chews slowly, rolling the fruit around, savoring it. Then she opens another bag, does the same with a handful of peanuts. Her stomach wakes up, cramps and grumbles and suddenly demands more with an insistence that leaves her shaking and breathless.

She downs two more handfuls of nuts, fast, and one more of raisins, before she can force herself to stop. Rolls down the top of the plastic bags, shoves everything into the pockets of her pants, her jacket, and looks around.

Now that she isn't starving, she needs a place to try to sleep for a few hours. Out of habit she goes up, up three rickety staircases and out a door to the roof.

And someone in the Gamemakers' room likes her, because there's a loose sheet of corrugated tin leaned up against the wall around the roof, making a space just big enough that she can mostly fit into it, out of the wet and the wind, and as safe as she'll get in this hellhole. She takes it as a sign, curls up, and sleeps.

Three days later, Rokia's down to one packet of dried meat, and she needs to collect water before she can eat it, and she needs to eat, soon. There's a few places she's been able to collect more than a mouthful of gritty, oily tasting water, places where there's enough scrap around that she can make a bowl to collect the slow drips as the fine drizzle and fog condense. She's on her hands and knees, bent to drink, when she hears the crunch of breaking glass behind her.

Strangely enough, the voice that rings in her mind is her uncle's, gruff. "Just 'cause you heard them doesn't mean they gotta know you did," and she swallows and shifts, as though she just happened to be finished, and turns. And there the illusion of a Six back-alley cracks, because it's the girl from Nine, no bigger than Rokia, blond hair hanging in greasy strings, coming loose from the braid down her back. Her eyes are wide, deep-sunk in her hungry face, and she's holding a knife a little longer then her hand, pointed towards Rokia.

She clearly hasn't ever used a knife for fighting, but Rokia has nothing to fight back with, her eyes scanning for anything that might be able to help but coming up empty. Nine sneers, makes a noise like a growl in the back of her throat, and lunges at Rokia. It's instinct that she blocks the girl's forearm with her own, twists away to run, and maybe she could outrun this kid, but maybe not, not after a week in here, so Rokia moves back in as the girl lunges again, and this time she's not quick enough to do more than shove the girls arm so that the knife scrapes across her shoulder rather than into her chest. It's bleeding, but that doesn't matter, because the girl's off balance and Rokia shoves her, hard, so she falls and the knife skitters out of her hand.

From there it's just one long pace to snatch up the blade, spin, still crouched down, and bring the knife up into the inside of the girl's thigh. The blood comes as a shock, shooting in a wide arc and coating Rokia and the wall behind her in red.

And now she can run, no way that girl's going to follow her, so she does, bloody knife shoved into her belt.

She races for one of her hideouts, on the roof not far from the central square, and she's crawling up the downspout when she hears the dull thud of a cannon. It brings her back from wherever her mind's gone, and she nearly falls. Takes a shaky breath and hauls herself onto the roof before collapsing in a heap, in the corner. Her hands are shaking too hard to do anything about the knife that's still covered in dried blood, the blood that's on her jacket and her pants and in her hair and in her nose.

Because she just killed someone, that cannon had to be for the Nine girl, right? With as much blood as she has on her, that kid can't still be alive. And Rokia has been trying not to think about this ever since her name was called in the square a lifetime ago. Don't get killed? That's been her job for a long time. Killing other people? Never.

But Uncle Salif showed her the artery in the leg, so she'd know how to end it fast if someone came for her for real, and she didn't even think before she used every bit of her strength to slice into that girl as far as she could. Didn't even think about the fact that she'd killed a living breathing person, a girl who had a family hoping she'd come back, people who needed her, until the damn cannon reminded her.

Rokia takes a deep, shuddering breath. Her stomach is roiling, and she can't afford to throw up, she won't do it, she breathes deep until her heartbeat slows. She's a murderer now. She's got blood all over her because she killed the girl from Nine, and she did it because this is the Arena. That's what happens in here. No point crying over it. She looks down at the blood on her hands, rubs at it, and heads for another of her water stashes to try to clean up.

Phillips watches his girl pull herself together, move out of her shocked huddle and head towards one of the water collections she's set up. His heart is racing as fast as hers is on his screen. It's good, he tells himself. She's made her first kill, and she was shaken up, of course she was, up close like that, blood spraying all over her. But she's up, and moving, and the cut in her shoulder doesn't look serious, and she still has food, though she'll have to steal more soon.

And then his phone rings. Philomena practically coos at him when he answers.

"Phillips, my dear, your girl is positively stunning," she says, while his screen shows Rokia using handfuls of water to scrub the blood from her face. "I think she may make a good showing after all, and I'm ready to make a contribution to your fund."

Phillips grits his teeth. "Why thank you so much, ma'am," he says, "I will see she gets the most from it."

"I'm sure you will," she says, and the line cuts out. He stares at the phone in his hand until the chirp from the monitor reminds him he has money to spend.

He looks through his options, all of them expensive, already, agonizing over the choice. She needs food, first. She's dehydrated, but not badly, according to his monitor, but she is malnourished, and it won't kill her but it'll weaken her so someone else can. It's quantity and price he's looking at, so his collection is mostly more dried meat, fruit, nuts, when he comes across something he's never noticed before. "District Six Porridge" they're calling it, the tesserae grain cooked to the consistency of paste he remembers dimly from childhood, a thin green sauce to make it taste like something.

It's cheap. It's got some water to it, that'll be good. She can't take it with her easily, but she needs a meal, and it's delivered hot.

It's been a week since Rokia ate a hot meal, and it's maybe not the best value for money, but he adds it to the collection and calls the parachutists.

Rokia's on the roof, sipping at water she's brought up in an emptied food bag, when they deliver it. The cameras follow the parachute down, catch her face lighting up when she opens the canister, tucks each packet of portable food carefully into a pocket. At the bottom is a small metal bowl, and when she feels the heat she wraps her fingers around it and just stays like that for a minute, absorbing the warmth through her skin. Then she twists open the top and she actually smiles, and right then Phillips would pay his whole stipend to see that smile again.

The Career Pack breaks ten days in. Phillips doesn't see what happens to set it off, just the bloody aftermath, all three girls lying on the ground, bleeding out. The Four boy has already taken off, leaving One and Two to glare at each other across the square, posturing, before heading in different directions.

With that they're down to the Final Eight. They asked him, yesterday, who they could interview in Six, and he'd boggled at them, his sleep-deprived brain unable to come up with any response. "I'd never met her before the Reaping," he'd said finally. "I have no idea." They'd come back later to interview him, and he'd talked about how resourceful she was, stealing that food, how she's strong and quick and how amazing it would be for Six to win.

He looks up from where Rokia is curled into her latest hiding spot to see the interviews. They've got her mom on the screen with someone they're calling a stepfather, two little girls crowded close, hands clasped tight together. "She's a huge help," the mother's saying, and they've let a Capitol prep team cover up the track marks on her arms, but Phillips knows a junkie when he sees one. The man is if anything worse, distracted and jittery, and his voice comes out harsh and drawling when he repeats what he's clearly learned by rote.

Then the interviewer bends down to the level of the little girls, and the older one pulls her sister close, protective. "We want her to do real well so she can come home soon," she says, careful. "We miss her a whole lot."

The announcers coo over how sweet the girls are, while the interviews shift to the inside of a hovercraft repair shop, a huge hangar with machines ranged around the hulking shape of a cargo craft wedged into the middle of the room. "She's a real good mechanic," a man's saying, and he's Phillips' size at least, dark skin shining with a sheen of sweat, dressed in a clean work shirt and jeans for the occasion. His hands open and close at his sides, like they're not used to holding still, and he's just about glaring at the camera. "I figured she'd do okay, always took care of herself." He smiles, crooked, and continues. "Taught her to throw a punch when she was eleven," he says, looking pleased. "Right out back here. Some guys were givin' her trouble. Didn't bother her any more after that." The interviewer titters behind her hand, and they come back to Claudius and Caesar in the broadcast room.

"Well!" Caesar says. "I guess we know where she gets her spunk!"

Phillips flips he switch on his headphones, looks back at his girl, sleeping restlessly. "Oh, kid," he mutters, trails off, reaches out to touch the screen as though she could feel him, trying to tuck her in for the night.

She's still sleeping, half-curled into the corner of the room, when Phillips realizes the main screen is showing the same building that's on his monitor. The Four boy is climbing the broken stairway inside, moving toward the room she's in, and Phillips can't breathe. He's not sure if the boy saw her from the outside or if he's looking for a hiding place himself, but it doesn't matter. There's a spear in his hand and a long knife in his belt, and all Phillips can think of is death and blood.

But the screen splits above him, and on his monitor her heart rate kicks up from sleep-slow to alert, before the Four boy's off the stairs. By the time he shoves the door open she's moving, and when he lifts his arm to throw the spear she ducks under it, snake-quick, and shoves her knife up under his sternum. She steps back as he falls, jerks the knife out and is up on the roof before the cannon sounds.

The whole thing took thirty seconds, it was fast and decisive and brutal and she's breathing fast but she looks exhilarated, tipping her face up into what's deigned to become actual rain as though for the express purpose of washing blood and filth off her face. She grins, sharp and vicious as any Career he's ever seen, and the cameras love it, staying on her with her mouth open, letting the rain fall in while Caesar crows about the upset.

He's not even surprised when the phone starts ringing.

Everyone knows the Hunger Games are supposed to be about death and glory, so Rokia isn't really surprised when the parachute comes before she's left the roof after killing the boy from Four. It should probably bother her, that she killed a boy and gets rewarded for it-but there's another bowl of porridge like her grandma used to make, and this time the sauce has chunks of meat. She has to work hard to keep from scarfing it down like an alley cat, knows it'll make her puke if she isn't careful but damn if it still hasn't vanished way before she's ready for it to be done. Phillips' note says there'll be more, and there's the usual portable stuff to stick in her pockets, but her whole body wants more. Her stomach feels stretched tight and uncomfortable though, and she curls in on herself when it cramps painfully, sits in a corner out of the rain until it passes.

And as soon as it does she has to move, because someone might come looking and she should've realized that before now except she's piecing thoughts together out of threads that slip away from her if she isn't careful. She can feel her brain tunneling in, slow and dull except for the things too far down to really be thoughts, the things that say "run" and "eat" and meant she was awake, knife in hand, before she even knew she'd heard the Four boy's feet on the stairs.

And now those not-quite-thoughts are telling her to move, and she listens.

That night there are four faces in the sky, most since the first day. District One, female. District Two, female, District Four, female. District Four, male. The next day it's District Eight, male, and District Eight female, and maybe Rokia's imagining things but their tribute photos look surprised to be there, this long into the Games. The next night there's nothing, and Rokia slips out to get water and wonders how many are left. Didn't think of keeping track, too late now, but it must, it just has to be almost done. As soon as it's light enough that she can almost see where she's going, Rokia's internal timer tells her it's time to move, she's been in one spot too long.

She's wary of all her old spots, wonders what tracks she's left that she can't see, so she wanders, aimless, until she finds a mess of old sewage pipes where she figures there might be a spot she could sqeeze into past where anyone could see from outside. She tightens her grip on her knife-not hers, not the one she's carried in her pocket till it slides into her hand like it's part of her, but it's done its job. Steps behind a falling-down wall, scanning the area around her so she doesn't even see the boy until she trips over his legs.

At first she thinks he's dead, there's too much blood on the concrete for it to be anything else, she's seen enough junkies stabbed in alleyways to know nobody gets up from a pool like that. She's about to take off, in case whoever did it is waiting for her, too, when her brain kicks in and reminds her she's not in Six, she's in the Arena, and in the Arena bodies don't lie around until someone finds the time to clear them out. In the Arena there's cannons for deaths and hovercraft to take the bodies, and right about then she notices that while the boy's eyes are glazed and unfocused, he's taking shallow, wheezing breaths somehow-and she swallows hard and braces herself against the desire to run.

District Two, she comes up with, finally, though it's hard to connect the ashen-white face and the still body and the pool of blood with the strong, confident kid who managed to charm just about everyone in training without ever letting them forget he would have no trouble killing them when the time came. District Two, Male, who nearly caught her stealing from the Career stash, who she last saw caught up with the girl from One like any other teenagers necking in a vacant lot.

She's going to have to kill him.

Well. She doesn't have to. She could walk away, and he'll die eventually, and the canon will fire and that's one less person between her and going home. Except. He's well past the point he could plead, but his eyes swim up toward hers and he blinks slowly and for all that he's bigger and older and better than her, he's helpless now and Rokia-Rokia can't just leave him.

She knows what she's supposed to do, forces her mind to reach back to the trainer pointing to a model of a person with the key blood vessels traced in red. This boy's lost so much blood the veins don't stand out on his neck anymore, but the tendons do, and she can figure it out from that. She kneels down for a closer look, fighting the screaming in her head that says it could all be a trick, that she's supposed to be moving, that this can't be her problem, isn't her problem-because he's a kid, like her, except they can't be kids, not here, and if she leaves he'll keep dying by inches and nobody deserves that.

She traces the line above his skin once, twice. Tries to force her shaking hands steady. Then she slices a long line across his neck, pressing hard, swallows against the scream that wants to come out of her throat as his opens, gaping, an eerie whistling from his severed windpipe, the blood pulsing faintly as his heart stutters to a stop. She's frozen until the canon fires, jolting her to her feet-too fast, her vision tunnels and she blinks hard, waits for it to clear, then turns and runs.

She doesn't run far, not much point when she doesn't know what direction to go. But soon she finds herself in the same busted up building where the Four boy found her, and huddled in the same old hiding spot she forces herself to think. To remember old Games where outliers managed to win, to think about how she could make this end.

And then she looks down, and there's a broken electrical outlet lying on the floor, trailing wire behind it like a tail. Tricks and traps, she thinks. That's how outliers win. She pulls on the wire and it gives, more and more of it coming out of the wall in her hands. And for a second she lets herself imagine Sara watching, shaking her head and laughing and calling her a dirty punk, before she's racing up the stairs to pry off more sockets to get the wires behind them.

When she has a good pile she goes back to a room with a mostly-intact door, and settles in. She can do this. She just needs something to slow them down, to hold them so she can get there.

And some redundancy. She's got plenty of wire after all.

Finally she has three or four snares lined up on the floor, ready to pull taut and trip up anyone who steps in them. She spreads the floor with the broken glass, peeling plywood and just plain dirt, enough to hopefully cover up her work, and goes to sit against the back wall.

And she waits. That night the Two boy's face is followed by the face of the boy from Seven and the light doesn't fade completely but stays grey and dim. She can't be sure, but Rokia thinks that means it's down to her and one other person. And whoever it is, she's hoping they come find her soon. She sips a little water, nibbles a little at the last of her food, slides into the numb daze she's spent most of her time in here, not quite awake but not really asleep either, just...waiting.

Eventually, there's footsteps on the stairs, and Rokia gets to her feet, back to the wall and knife in hand.

It works better than she dared imagine. She barely has time to recognize the One boy before he's on the floor, face down with both feet trapped in her snares, pulled in two directions at once and struggling to get out as the wire tightens and cuts into his ankles. Rokia can't afford to hesitate, can't let him catch his breath, and there's ringing in her ears as she steps up, stomps on his hand till he drops his sword, kicks it across the room. His left hand's searching for something, a knife at his belt, but she doesn't let him get there, brings her boot down on his wrist, steps so she's straddling his back and yanks his head up by the hair. Refuses to think about it when she reaches down, awkward from this angle, and pulls the blade across his throat. Keeps herself upright, her stomach rebelling and her breath coming in desperate fast gasps when she lets go and his head falls with a sick thud, the blood pooling under him while he wheezes a last breath.

She staggers away, leans against the wall, hears trumpets and the sound of a hovercraft outside. And her feet lead her to the window, automatic, and she steps out, onto the ladder that freezes her so she can't fall, pulls her up into the belly of the hovercraft and out of the Arena.


	3. Chapter 3

Phillips stares at the screen, his mind completely blank, while the hovercraft pulls Rokia out of the Arena. He sees Dexter, in the corner of his eye, sit back heavy against his chair, but he can't pull his eyes away from the screen until the hovercraft's flown away and it goes blank. Then and only then does he sit back, scrub his hands over his face, and realize it's covered with tears, that he's crying, and that he has no idea what to do now.

The control room's empty and quiet, and he walks out, stunned, and finds Brutus, sitting gingerly on one of the too-small couches outside. Brutus grins at him, and Phillips smiles back, too wrung out to be embarrassed, but Brutus doesn't seem to mind.

"Come on," he says, clapping Phillips on the shoulder. "Let's go see your girl."

They get to medical just as the hovercraft is arriving, and Phillips' heart almost stops when he sees the doctors wheeling Rokia in on a stretcher, IV in her arm. She's battered and bruised and only half-conscious and he's looking for a door in to see her when Brutus shakes him.

"Hey," Brutus says, "it's okay, they're giving her fluids, she's dehydrated, the sedatives are standard. She's gonna be fine, okay, just give them some time."

Phillips tries taking deep breaths, thinks back to his own Games, to waking up stunned and panicking at the needle in his arm. They watch in silence as the doctors wash off weeks of Arena grime, catalog scrapes and bruises and the cut on her shoulder that's angry infected red. Finally a doctor shuts the blinds and Phillips looks away, turns to lean against the wall.

"What in the twelve districts do I do now?" he says, more or less to himself.

Brutus' mouth twists into a crooked smile. "Now the hard part starts," he says. Then his face goes serious. "Walk with me."

Phillips hesitates, looking back at the window.

"They won't let you see her for a while yet," Brutus says, "and this won't wait."

Phillips' eyebrows go up at that, but he follows Brutus out of the medical wing, to a noisy Capitol park where Brutus stops next to an ornamental fountain.

"You have to figure out her angle," Brutus says. "Starting right now."

Phillips just stares at him, uncomprehending. Brutus' jaw clenches and he continues. "Right now she's set up to be the cunning, clever outlier who took out the Careers. She's got four kills, and the last three of them are every one of the Career boys who survived the split."

Brutus' face doesn't give anything away, even though one of those kids was from his district, and Phillips wonders, but he doesn't say anything.

"You have to change that," Brutus says, intense. "You make sure she comes off as just a smart kid who got lucky and is grateful to the Capitol for her chance. Otherwise they'll figure they need to take her down a couple notches."

Now Phillips gets it. Thinks of the two sisters Rokia told him about, the people on the interview tapes, the kids who came to see her at the Justice Building. Thinks about Haymitch and Johanna and all the others who didn't fall in line, takes a breath, and nods. "Yeah," he says, and his voice comes out rough. "You're right."

"Go back to medical," Brutus says. "The President's going to call you soon, he'll expect you to be there."

By the time Phillips gets back, the last gasp of adrenaline and bad coffee has disappeared, and despite his best efforts he falls asleep on the couch. He's not sure how long he's been asleep when an Avox shakes him awake and leads him to the waiting room outside the President's office. He grinds the heels of his hands into his eyes, tries to shake himself awake and alert, and waits to be called in.

Finally the door swings open and he walks into a room he hasn't seen in twenty some years.

"Mister Phillips," the President says, "Congratulations."

"Thank you sir," Phillips says. "It's an honor."

"She's clever, your girl," the President continues.

"Sir?" Phillips forces his tired brain to remember what Brutus told him.

"She played a very interesting Game," the President says, and there's no clue in Snow's voice whether that's a compliment or a threat.

"She just did what she had to do to come home," Phillips says, figuring it's the safest thing.

"Hmm. And now that she has, is she going to continue to be... Interesting?"

Phillips searches for the right answer, but he doesn't know what that might be. So he finally settles on one that at least can't be wrong. "She will do whatever you ask of her," he says.

The President smiles. "Yes," he says. "I'm sure she will." He looks down at the papers on his desk. "You may go, Mister Phillips."

"Thank you, sir," Phillips says, and manages to make it out of the office, where he leans against the wall and closes his eyes.

Rokia's ears wake up first, to a steady beeping that speeds up when she realizes she's not sure where she is, tucked in tight so her legs feel pinned. There's the shift of a chair moving across the floor and footsteps, and her eyes fly open to find Phillips standing by her bed with his eyebrows furrowed.

Her brain spins and stutters for a minute, like an engine with a fouled spark plug, finally sputtering to life, slow and stupid still but moving at least. White sheets, white walls, an IV in her arm and a tube up her nose, and she hasn't been in a hospital since Kadi was born but she recognizes it.

IV in her arm. That's probably why she's so slow and stupid, and she works one hand out from under the covers to reach for it.

"Hey," Phillips says, his voice rusty and rough. "Leave it, it's okay."

Rokia blinks up at him, wets her dry lips to say something, and leaves it. Drops her hand back down, looks around.

"You're in the Capitol," Phillips says, hesitant. "In Medical. They're waiting for you to be stable before they have the closing ceremonies."

Rokia nods, just slightly. She should say something. "Okay," she tries, and her voice sounds strange in her own ears, scrapes rough in her throat, so she doesn't say anything else.

Phillips smiles. "Welcome back, kid," he says, and Rokia can't think what to say to that, and her eyes want to slide closed, so she lets them.

When she wakes up again, there's a nurse checking something, and Phillips is asleep, his head leaned back against the wall and his mouth open. The nurse follows her gaze and shakes her head. "He's been here this whole time," she says, quiet. Rokia's eyes prickle at that, and she goes back to sleep.

Finally she wakes up for real, a different nurse is standing over her bed looking at the bags hanging from the IV stand. Phillips is standing with his arms crossed, glaring. The nurse looks down at her and nods. "Hi, Rokia," Phillips says, soft, and she looks at him. "She's going to take out the IV and the feeding tube."

Rokia nods. The nurse leans over and starts disconnecting tubes and wires, and Rokia chokes and gags as the tube comes out of her throat but it's over soon enough. The nurse gives her something to drink, impossibly sweet, and Rokia sips through a straw until her stomach feels tight. She hands it to the nurse, who takes it and slips out of the room. Rokia looks up at Phillips, searches for the words. "What happens now?"

He almost flinches, and Rokia files that away to think about later, when her brain works. "They're going to prep you, dress you," he says in a flat voice. "You'll have the recap with Caesar tonight, and an interview."

Rokia shifts, sitting up away from the raised back of the bed. Her head isn't pounding and swimming anymore, but her limbs feel heavy and slow. She swings her legs over the side of the bed and stands up, one hand brushing against the side of the bed. Her heart pounds in her chest still, but stays steady, none of the stuttering rush of the last days in the Arena. She walks over to the wall and back, and it tires her out, but she'll manage.

She sits back down on the bed and looks at Phillips again. He's watching her, serious. "You'll have to talk to him," he says.

Rokia opens her mouth, closes it, wants to laugh but doesn't. "Oh," she says, and her throat is sore from the tube and her voice sounds too loud and too rough, but Phillips is right. "I guess I should practice then."

One corner of Phillips' mouth twitches up into a tiny, exhausted half-smile. "Good idea," he says. He goes stone-faced again, looks around, but nobody's there. "You have to be careful what you say," he says, in a quiet voice. "You're a smart kid, got real lucky, okay?"

She's neither smart nor lucky, that's a joke except that she's here and she should be dead, so maybe it's not. But Phillips is looking her straight in the eye like there's something more, and Rokia shakes her head, quick, to clear it, and thinks.

"You're grateful," Phillips continues, still watching her intently. "To the Capitol, the sponsors, the President."

Oh. Rokia nods, slowly. Thinks maybe she understands. "I'm just so glad to be here," she says, head down and eyes up, the look she used on the lady at the store when they couldn't afford formula for Kadi. Hunches her shoulders in and makes herself small. "I learned so much in training?" She lets her voice edge upwards, her eyes dart sideways, "And I'm just so lucky to be here." She gives Phillips her best shy smile, and his eyebrows are practically at his hairline. She relaxes, lets herself grin, realizes it's the first time since-well, in a long time, and Phillips looks impressed.

"Yeah," he says, as the prep team comes in, "You'll do fine."

Sometimes the mentors come on with their tributes, and Phillips is secretly hoping they ask him, because he doesn't want to let Rokia out of arm's reach just yet. But he's not interesting enough for the Capitol to want to see him, and so he stands in the darkened wings of the stage, trying not to scowl or clench his fists or look angry because they always might cut a camera towards him just to see how he's taking being mentor to a living Victor. Rokia is leaning on the wall a few feet away-when he got too close she shied away, so he leaves her be. Caesar calls her name, and she looks at him, quirks one side of her mouth up in a half-smile, and walks out. They've put her in knee-high boots, flat after she almost sprained her ankle trying to walk in heels, a short black dress with copper wire highlights just to remind everyone why she's here. She looks like she belongs to the Capitol now, and Phillips hates it, grinds his teeth until he manages to force his tongue between them. She blinks in the lights, lets Caesar shake her hand, kiss her cheek, lead her to her chair. Her back is to him, and in the bright light he can see the muscles in her shoulders and back, wire-taut even as the screens show him her face with that out-of-place shy smile.

She plays it perfectly. Starts out quiet, hesitant, lets Caesar draw her out, and finally admits how happy she is to be going home to her family. Her face goes blank when they play the recap, shorter than some he's seen, and he sees what Brutus means about her being dangerous. She sprints from the Cornucopia, scales walls, finds water. Steals from the Careers. Becomes a killer when cornered, like a feral cat. Each cannon from the screen makes her flinch, and she hides it pretty well from her face, but her body draws in and her hands clench into tight fists under the flared hem of her skirt. When she slits the Two boy's throat it looks careful, methodical, and they cut away when she stands up, skip the part where her face drained bone-white and she gagged, stumbling away. The Four boy collapses, bleeding out, while Rokia cleans her knife and grins sharp at the sky. The One boy steps into her trap and is dead in seconds, and they show the blank relief on Rokia's face before the screens go black and then fade back in on her and Caesar.

Caesar grins hugely. "Well!" he says. "Wasn't that thrilling!" Rokia eyes flash before she looks down, hides it as embarrassment. "You have to tell me about those traps at the end."

Phillips watches Rokia's shoulders rise and fall in a deep breath, and when she talks her voice is steady. "I learned in training," she says. "My mentor told me to focus on the snares and traps, and it really paid off." Phillips sees his own face in the corner of the screen, schools it into pleased-yet-detached, or something he hopes will pass for that, but they flash away quickly, keeping the focus on his girl. "I'm just so lucky to be here," she says, head down, looking up through the long eyelashes they glued on earlier, and Caesar smiles his broadcast grin but Phillips thinks he can see appreciation for good acting for an outlier who by rights should be flinching and terrified the way they usually are.

"We're so glad you are!" Caesar says, and the crowd roars.

Phillips has always thought the post-Games party was obscene, Capitol excess at its worst, and today it seems like torture. Linsea appears as the interview ends, hustles them into a car and to the venue as soon as the crown is placed on Rokia's head. Rokia is silent, blank, barely reacting to Linsea's questions or his own, showing no particular sign she understands what's going on, but once they walk in she straightens her shoulders, shakes her head, and smiles, and while she edges toward the walls when she can, she's gracious and polite, lets Linsea introduce her to sponsors and dignitaries, shakes their hands. It's not until near dawn he realizes she's leaning against the wall, and her face has gone ashen under the makeup.

He walks over to her. "Hey," he says, soft, and her eyes focus in on him from a long way away. "Let's go."

She just nods, and he offers his arm like a fancy Capitol gentleman, raising an eyebrow to hopefully signal it's a joke. She doesn't react to that either, but she rests her arm on his, and lets him take quite a bit of her weight as they head out. Linsea squawks about them leaving, but shuts up with the force of Phillips' glare, bustles off inside to make apologies.

Rokia nearly collapses into the car, curls against the door with her knees drawn up under her and looks out at the dimming streetlights. They pull into the private garage under the building, and as Rokia starts unfolding, trying to stand on unsteady legs, Phillips' cold fury gets the best of him. When even hitching her up in his arms gets no reaction he starts worrying. But when they get to her room, she shifts. "I'm okay," she whispers, and he sets her down in front of the door. "Goodnight, Phillips," she says, slips in, and closes the door.

Rokia can't quite count how many days they spend in the Capitol. She sleeps, mostly, when she's not at parties or interviews or being prepped, and as soon as she gets to one of those she slides into the not-really-her persona that Phillips says is good and stops thinking. So she can't count how many days it's been since she woke up when Phillips knocks on her door and tells her they're going home.

She doesn't understand at first, jolted out of sleep with a suddenness that leaves her searching for a weapon. So she stares at Phillips for a long minute while she rearranges her head to include the concept of home as something more than an almost-forgotten feeling just out of reach.

"Good," she says, running her fingers through her hair. Phillips steps into the room, which makes her tense up, but he just pulls something out of his pocket and sets it on the table by the bed. She crawls across the expanse of fancy sheets, and picks up her old knife. Flips it open, runs her finger along the side of the blade.

"Thought you'd want that back," Phillips says, and he's retreated to the doorway again, just watching as she closes her hand around the worn-smooth handle.

"Thank you," she says, and he just nods, and leaves.

Of course even for going home they can't let her dress herself, she walks out to the prep room in her sleep clothes, her knife closed but still in hand. She manages to slide it into the absurdly padded bra they put on, lets them rub creams into her skin and weave her hair into a different elaborate style, closes her eyes and drifts. Not quite asleep, alert enough to move if she needs to but not quite awake enough to really think, since halfway through the Arena it's been a comfortable place to settle into, waiting just under her skin. She pulls herself up and out when they tell her they're finished, blow kisses, press her hands, congratulate her and tell her how much they're looking forward to working with her in the future.

Phillips and Linsea are waiting for her, and Linsea takes Rokia's face in her hands the way she always does, kisses Rokia's forehead, steps back and beams. "You look amazing. I will send instructions on hair and skincare just as soon as I can." One more kiss, and she fairly floats away. Phillips offers his arm, and it's become a thing they do, since that first night, the cameras think it's lovely and old-fashioned and district-quaint, so Phillips keeps doing it.

This time at least Rokia doesn't need the support to stand, so she just rests her fingers on Phillips' arm, follows him into the elevator, through the crowd, and onto the train.

It's an odd feeling when the door slides closed and the train jerks, just slightly, and accelerates. Rokia retreats to a seat in the main car, curling into the chair and looking out the window. But before long she hears footsteps, and one, then two, then five, then the whole train crew is standing at the end of the car. Phillips looks over at her and smiles, nods at the crew boss.

"I'm Joe," the man says, stepping forward, and Rokia is many things but she's not rude, so she climbs to her feet, steps up and extends her hand. Joe shakes hers, careful, his hand engulfing hers, warm and rough. "Just wanna tell you we're real proud you made it."

Rokia has heard several thousand congratulations, seems like, but this one punches her in the chest, and she has to look away. "Thanks," she says, and she coughs to clear the thickness out of her voice.

Joe steps back, and the rest of the crew shakes her hand, one at a time, most of them silent. Then Joe gives her a nod, motions with his hand, and the crew goes back to work.


End file.
